The race to find thousands of extra shipyard workers needed to build two mighty aircraft carriers in the North East began today.

Senior politicians have been told urgent action is needed on two fronts if the region is to recruit the vast numbers of new skilled men to handle an expected avalanche of work for the #2.9 billion vessels.

Now details of a major new apprenticeship scheme for the region, taking on 100 trainees a year, have been announced.

The news comes as three senior Labour politicians toured the Swan Hunter yard in Wallsend, which is expected to win up to 40pc of the building work for the two 60,000 ton Royal Navy carriers, which will be capable of carrying 50 planes each.

Minister for Work, Nick Brown, Alan Campbell MP and MEP Gordon Adam were briefed on the success of Swan Hunter's existing apprentice training scheme which has places for 12 people a year.

The present scheme is the model for the extended one, which will be a partnership involving industry, Government and regional development agency, One North East.

Swan Hunter boss Jaap Kroese used the visit to hammer home the urgent need for the scheme to be extended as a first stage in the search for the extra workers.

The firm now employs 1,250 people and currently has 150 trainees on its books, who are studying varying aspects of ship building.

Mr Kroese said: "In August we expect to hear which parts of the carriers we will be building and it could well be the case that we have long-term work for possibly 5,000 people. We will have a ten year work programme ahead of us."

Mr Brown, also the MP for Wallsend, said: "We are planning quite a substantial expansion of the scheme, but the work has to be there."

The plan is to have a new training scheme ready to start by September which will combine on the job training with sessions at local colleges. Mr Brown said he was confident that former shipyard workers who have drifted into other industries can also be tempted to return.

The influx of people returning to the Tyne from other industries or even abroad will form the second part of the recruitment drive.

"We know that the demand to work in the industry is there - there were 1,000 applications for the 12 places available on the last course at Swan Hunter," added Mr Brown.

Tynemouth MP Mr Campbell is also head of the influential North Eastern Marine Offshore Cluster of shipping firms and he vowed the group will do all it can to grasp the big chance to revive the whole industry as a result of the carriers.

He said the aim was to reverse a long-term perception that ship building in the North East is either dead, or on its last legs.

"We have people from this region who have left the area to work all over the world to find jobs in the shipbuilding sector. Now we are in a position to offer them a future in the North East."

Mr Adam said if the public and private sector works together to promote the training initiative it should take off.

Page 2: Ships work may spark US jobs....

Ships work may spark US jobs

Geordie firms which win work on a #2.9 billion aircraft carrier project could find themselves breaking into the massive American defence market.

BAE Systems, which is the prime contractor on the Royal Navy contract, is predicting the vessels will be the most complex ships in the world when they enter service in 2012 and 2015.

And the type of innovations likely to be introduced in the carriers has already drawn envious looks from across the Atlantic.

A spokeswoman for BAE confirmed: "We know that the US navy is very interested in some of the things that we are developing in this programme."

She said that of particular interest is the level of automation being used in some of the more labour-intensive aspects of running an aircraft carrier.

An example is how the new carriers will reduce the amount of people needed to get weaponry from the on-board arsenals to the aircraft - on the big American craft this takes 400 people.

Swan Hunter is one of the key partners in the building of the Royal Navy vessels and it is planning to subcontract out half of any work it receives.

The BAE spokeswoman added that it is possible that some of the most innovative work, and therefore that most likely to result in follow-up orders, could end up being done in the North East.